View source for Jump Jim Crow

{{short description|American song about Jim Crow}}
{{Infobox song
| name          = Jump Jim Crow
| cover         = Jimcrow.jpg
| alt           = Cover to an early edition of "Jump Jim Crow" sheet music (c 1832)
| caption       = Cover to an early edition sheet music by Thomas. D Rice, pictured here performing in black face at the [[Bowery Theatre]], Manhattan, illustration by [[Edward Williams Clay]], {{circa|1832}}
| type          = song
| written       = 1828
| published     = 1832
| writer        = [[Thomas D. Rice]]
| genre       =  Minstrel song, folk song, song and dance song
}}

"'''Jump Jim Crow'''", often shortened to just "'''Jim Crow'''", is a song and dance from 1828 that was done in [[blackface]] by white [[Minstrel show|minstrel]] performer [[Thomas D. Rice|Thomas Dartmouth (T. D.) "Daddy" Rice]]. The song is speculated to have been taken from [[Jim Crow (character)|Jim Crow]] (sometimes called Jim Cuff or Uncle Joe), a physically disabled [[Slavery in the United States|enslaved African-American]], who is variously claimed to have lived in St. Louis, Cincinnati, or Pittsburgh.<ref>{{Cite news  | title = An Old Actor's Memories; What Mt. Edmon S. Conner Recalls About His Career  | newspaper = The New York Times  | page = 10   | date = June 5, 1881 | url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1881/06/05/98559069.pdf |access-date=March 10, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal| title=The Negro on the Stage |first=Michael| last=Hutton| journal=Harpers Magazine| pages=131–145| date=Jun–Dec 1889| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P3cCAAAAIAAJ&q=%22jim%20cuff%22%20cincinnati&pg=PA131| access-date=March 10, 2010| publisher=Harper's Magazine Co.| volume=79}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=P3cCAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22jim%20cuff%22%20cincinnati&pg=PA137 see pages 137-138]</ref> The song became a 19th-century hit and Rice performed it all over the [[United States]] as "Daddy Pops Jim Crow".

"Jump Jim Crow" was a key initial step in a tradition of [[popular music]] in the United States that was based on the racist "imitation" of [[black people]]. The first song sheet edition appeared in the early 1830s, published by E. Riley. A couple of decades saw the mockery genre explode in popularity with the rise of the [[minstrel show]].

"[[Abolitionism|Abolitionists]] on both sides of the Atlantic seized upon this new format, including burnt-cork blackface, to promote the end of [[slavery]]."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://exhibits.lib.usf.edu/exhibits/show/minstrelsy/jimcrow-to-jolson/abolition|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130722163315/http://exhibits.lib.usf.edu/exhibits/show/minstrelsy/jimcrow-to-jolson/abolition|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 22, 2013|title=Exhibitions}}</ref>

As originally printed, the song contained "floating verses", which appear in altered forms in other popular folk songs. The chorus of the song is closely related to the traditional ''Uncle Joe / Hop High Ladies''; some [[Folklore studies|folklorists]] consider "Jim Crow" and "Uncle Joe" to be a single, continuous family of songs.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.bluegrassmessengers.com/jim-crow--version-3-150-verses-american-memory.aspx | title=Alternative lyrics at Bluegrass Messengers | access-date=2023-03-23}}</ref>

As a result of Rice's fame, the term ''Jim Crow'' had become a [[pejorative]] term for [[African Americans]] by 1838,<ref name="scjc7">{{cite book | last1=Woodward | first1=C.V. | last2=McFeely | first2=W.S. | title=The Strange Career of Jim Crow | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2002 | isbn=978-0-19-514690-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5D3RCwAAQBAJ | access-date=7 March 2024 | page=7 }}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>{{Failed verification|date=March 2024|reason=the source does not state that "Jim Crow" is "pejorative" or otherwise disparaging}} and from this time onward, the laws of [[racial segregation]] became known as [[Jim Crow laws]].

==Lyrics==
As they are most commonly quoted, the lyrics of the song are as follows:

{{Poem quote|
{{Not a typo|Come, listen all you gals and boys, Ise just from [[Tuckahoe (plantation)|Tuckyhoe]];
I'm goin' to sing a little song, My name's Jim Crow.

''CHORUS [after every verse]''
    Weel about and turn about and do jis so,
    Eb'ry time I weel about I jump Jim Crow.

I went down to the river, I didn't mean to stay;
But dere I see so many gals, I couldn't get away.

And arter I been dere awhile, I tought I push my boat;
But I tumbled in de river, and I find myself afloat.

I git upon a flat boat, I cotch de Uncle Sam;
Den I went to see de place [[Battle of New Orleans|where dey kill'd de Pakenham]].

And den I go to [[New Orleans|Orleans]], an, feel so full of flight;
Dey put me in de [[prison|calaboose]], an, keep me dere all night.

When I got out I hit a man, his name I now forgot;
But dere was noting left of him 'cept a little grease spot.

And oder day I hit a man, de man was mighty fat
I hit so hard I nockt him in to an old cockt hat.

I whipt my weight in wildcats, I eat an alligator;
I drunk de [[Mississippi River|Mississippy]] up! O! I'm de very creature.

I sit upon a hornet's nest, I dance upon my head;
I tie a [[handkerchief|wiper]] round my neck an, den I go to bed.

I kneel to de buzzard, an, I bow to the crow;
An eb'ry time I weel about I jump jis so.}}}}

===Standard English===
Other verses, quoted in non-dialect standard English:<ref>This exact sequence of verses appeared in dialect version on the Halo LP record ''Songs of America (including Cowboy Favorites)'', album number 50102 (1957), as performed by National Singers.</ref>

{{Poem quote|
Come, listen, all you girls and boys, I'm just from Tuckahoe;
I'm going to sing a little song, My name's Jim Crow.

''CHORUS:''
    Wheel about, and turn about, and do just so;
    Every time I wheel about, I jump Jim Crow.

I went down to the river, I didn't mean to stay,
But there I saw so many girls, I couldn't get away.

I'm roaring on the fiddle, and down in old Virginia,
They say I play the scientific, like master [[Paganini]],

I cut so many monkey shines, I dance the galoppade;
And when I'm done, I rest my head, on shovel, hoe or spade.

I met Miss Dina Scrub one day, I give her such a buss [kiss];
And then she turn and slap my face, and make a mighty fuss.

The other girls they begin to fight, I told them wait a bit;
I'd have them all, just one by one, as I thought fit.

I whip the lion of the west, I eat the alligator;
I put more water in my mouth, then boil ten load of potatoe.

The way they bake the [[Johnnycake|hoe cake]], Virginia never tire.
They put the dough upon the foot and stick them in the fire.}}

==Variants==
As he extended it from a single song into an entire minstrel revue, Rice routinely wrote additional verses for "Jump Jim Crow". Published versions from the period run as long as 66 verses; one extant version of the song, as archived by [[American Memory]], includes 150 verses.<ref>[http://www.bluegrassmessengers.com/jim-crow--version-3-150-verses-american-memory.aspx Alternative lyrics at Blugrassmessengers.com]</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Jim Crow complete in 150 verses|url=https://www.loc.gov/resource/amss.as106700.0/?st=text|access-date=2022-02-06|website=Library of Congress}}</ref> Verses range from the boastful [[doggerel]] of the original version to an endorsement of President [[Andrew Jackson]] (known as "Old Hickory"); his [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig]] opponent in the [[1832 United States presidential election|1832 election]] was [[Henry Clay]]:<ref>{{Harvnb|Strausbaugh|2006|pp=92–93}}</ref>

{{Poem quote|
Old hick'ry never mind de boys
But hold up your head;
For people never turn to clay
'Till arter dey be dead.<ref name=Strausbaugh-93>{{Harvnb|Strausbaugh|2006|p=93}}</ref>}}

Other verses by Rice, also written in 1832, demonstrate anti-slavery sentiments and cross-racial solidarity, sentiments that were rarely expressed in later [[blackface]] minstrelsy:<ref name=Strausbaugh-93 />

{{Poem quote|
Should dey get to fighting,
Perhaps de blacks will rise,
For deir wish for freedom,
Is shining in deir eyes.

And if de blacks should get free,
I guess dey'll see some bigger,
An I shall consider it,
A bold stroke for de nigger.

I'm for freedom,
An for Union altogether,
Although I'm a black man,
De white is call'd my broder.<ref name=Strausbaugh-93 />}}

The song also condemns Virginia for being the birthplace of [[George Washington]], and the landing place for slaves from Guinea in Africa.

{{Poem quote|
But bress dat Baltimore,
Wid a monument of stun,
Erected to de memory,
Ob great massa Washington.
Dan dare is de state,
Where de niggers lan from guinny,
De birth place ob dat great man,
Tree cheers for ol Virginny.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/resource/amss.as106700.0|title = Jim Crow complete in 150 verses|website = [[Library of Congress]]}}</ref>}}

== Origins ==
The origin of the name "Jim Crow" is obscure but may have evolved from the use of the [[pejorative]] "crow" to refer to black people in the 1730s.<ref>I Hear America Talking by Stuart Berg Flexner, New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1976, page 39; possibly also Robert Hendrickson, The Dictionary of Eponyms: Names That Became Words (New York: Stein and Day, 1985), {{ISBN|0-8128-6238-4}}, possibly page 162 (see edit summary for explanation).</ref> Jim may be derived from "Jimmy", an old [[Cant (language)|cant]] term for a crow, which is based on a pun for the tool "crow" ([[crowbar]]). Before 1900, crowbars were called "crows" and a short crowbar was and still is called a "jimmy", a typical burglar's tool.<ref>Lockwood's dictionary of terms used in the practice of mechanical engineering by Joseph Gregory Horner (1892).</ref><ref name=nys>For example, in the New York statutes on burglary it reads: "... having in his possession any pick-lock, key, crow, jack, bit, jimmy, nippers, pick, betty or other implement of burglary ..."</ref><ref>John Ruskin in Flors Clavigera writes: "... this poor thief, with his crow-bar and jimmy" (1871).</ref> The folk concept of a dancing crow predates the Jump Jim Crow minstrelsy and has its origins in the old farmer's practice of soaking corn in [[whisky|whiskey]] and leaving it out for the crows. The crows eat the corn and become so drunk that they cannot fly, but wheel and jump helplessly near the ground, where the farmer can kill them with a club.<ref>"Sometimes he made the crows drunk on corn soaked in whiskey, and as they reeled among the hillocks, knocked them on the head", [https://books.google.com/books?id=RWgEAAAAQAAJ&dq=%22A%20Legend%20of%20Crow%20Hill%22&pg=PA68 "A Legend of Crow Hill". The World at Home: A Miscellany of Entertaining Reading. Groombridge & Sons, London (1858)], page 68.</ref><ref>"Somebody baited a field-fall of crows, once, with beans soaked in brandy; whereby they got drunk.", [https://books.google.com/books?id=qTMTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1 "Talking of Birds". The Columbian Magazine, July 1844, p. 7] (p. 350 of PDF document).</ref><ref>"Soak a few quarts of dried corn in whiskey, and scatter it over the fields for the crows. After partaking one such meal and getting pretty thoroughly corned, they will never return to it again." The Old Farmers Almanac, 1864.</ref>

==See also==
* [[Uncle Tom]]
* [[Minstrel show|Minstrel shows]] 

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==Further reading ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040815081532/http://www.bluegrassmessengers.com/master/jimcrow5.html Lyrics and background] from the ''Bluegrass Messengers''
* In ''[[Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds]]'', [[Charles Mackay (author)|Charles Mackay]], pg 629–630, reported his dismay at hearing the song in London.
* ''Scandalize My Name: Black Imagery in American Popular Music'', by Sam Dennison (1982, New York)
* {{Cite book
| last=Strausbaugh
| first      = John
| date       = 8 June 2006
| title      = Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult and Imitation in American Popular Culture
| publisher  = Jeremy P. Tarcher / Penguin
| isbn       = 978-1-58542-498-6 
| url-access = registration
| url        = https://archive.org/details/blacklikeyoublac00stra
}}

{{authority control}}
[[Category:Jim Crow]]
[[Category:1828 songs]]
[[Category:Blackface minstrel songs]]
[[Category:American children's songs]]
[[Category:American folk songs]]
[[Category:Stereotypes of African Americans]]